Part 4 (1/2)

Tokamo was halted by a knock at the door.

”All right if I come in?” Darius of Gwyndryth in- quired. ”There was n.o.body to announce me.”

”By all means, my lord. Be welcome,” Jarrod said, rising. Tokamo followed suit.

”I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” Darius said as he advanced,

26 t JOHN LEE

”No, no. Tokamo and I were just discussing this morning's Commission meeting.”

”Ah, just what I came to do.”

Tokamo fetched another chair. ”Wine or ale?” he asked.

”Wine, please.”

”What have you heard about this morning's to-do?”

Jarrod asked when they were all seated.

”That Isphardel was a burr under the saddle and that you made your own grab for land.”

Jarrod smiled and leaned back. He contemplated the Holdmaster. The man had aged well. His hair had been white when Jarrod first met him some twenty years ago.

He had seemed an old man then, recovering as he was from the terrible wounds he had suffered fighting for the Empire against the Outlanders. He looked better now than he had then. His age had caught up with the color of his hair, but, from Jarrod's vantage point in his mid-thirties, the Holdmaster no longer seemed all

that old to him.

”I must admit,” he said, ”that I had not expected such precipitate opposition from the Oligarch, though I knew that Isphardel would never agree to the plan.”

Darius smiled in his turn. ”She's a formidable woman,” he agreed. ”And I must admit that I like and admire her. Mind you,” he added with sly humor, ”I am known to be partial to strong women. My old friend Phalastra, I hear, does not share my tastes.”

”I think that her suggestion that Umbria cede its sea- coast upset him,” Jarrod said judiciously.

”I know,” Darius said, suppressing glee. ”Otorin told me. I love the old boy dearly, but I wish I'd been there

to see the look on his face.”

”He would have disappointed you,” Jarrod said. ”He got a little red, but his demeanor was impeccable.”

”He hasn't survived as Varodias' chief councillor all

THE UNICORN PEACE t 27

these years without learning how to hide his feelings,”

Darius concurred. ”He's a remarkable man. I only hope that I'm as spry and as lucid when 1 get to be his age.

Still, he does what the Emperor tells him to and the consequences of this particular move could be grave.”

He nodded his head for emphasis and took a drink.

”The solution is simple,” Jarrod said.